The Founding of Our Church

Our mission in San Pancho is growing. We have a great core group who over the past year have been saved and baptized. We wanted those believers to be able to start participating more in the ministries of our church. Most of our people like to be involved, but it was time to clearly define for all who the true believers were, the ones who since they were Christians can participate in certain privileges that come with being a member of a church. While we Do want to include the unbelievers who attend in as much as possible, we do not want someone who isn't a Christian for example sharing a testimony up in the front of the church, being part of our worship team, or leading a ministry. It was time to draw a line in the sand. 

It is a tradition here for churches to have a special day once a year to celebrate the Bible. We thought that would be a great time to found our church. We would be talking about doctrine and defining once again clearly the distinctives of our church, what we believe and why based on the Bible. We are trying to help everyone memorize the books of the Bible to be able to find verses more easily, so we are saying the books together each week during the services. 

I was planning a visual for my SS classroom and I guess accidentally thought out loud, because Jimmy asked if we could put it on the wall in the main part of our church. You can see it on the wall below, it is pretty big! There are so many basics that you learn in SS when you are a kid that make studying your Bible so much easier. Those are the things we will be focusing on over the next couple of months. The missing pieces that the rest of us take for granted. 

We had a great turnout for our Day of the Bible! Before Jimmy preached he had Nick read a poem about how God is revealed in each book of the Bible. Afterwards we sang Oh How He Loves Us. It was a pretty special moment. 

Here's the kids' time:

We studied the Bible too and made tape measures talking about that the Bible is what we measure everything against. Norma helped me with the craft time!

 The itty bitty kids' coloring table:

 I guess this is the really itty bitty kids' floor... where they eat the crayons!:

After the service all of the people who had been saved and baptized and who wanted to join the church came up and signed a record of our founding.

 There was so much joy!

I am so thankful for all of these people! Four other people who have already put their faith in Christ came and told Jimmy that they wanted to be baptized! 

I think this is great. They are ready to be identified as Christ followers! This is what we wanted, for those who are Christians to boldly want to identify themselves as such and look forward to serving in the church. 

Then it was time for those tamales!

Eden wanted to help too... 

help herself to a tamale!

This was when she saw Jimmy with the camera. She stood up and said, "Cheese!"

Rebeca opened up the leaves for her and she ate the entire thing!

Here's Silas and Hugo enjoying their tamales. 

 Happy Birthday San Pancho Baptist Church! (September 8, 2013)